LIFE AFTER DEATH 1 HOW CAN WE SURVIVE DEATH? Materialists (or Monists) who accept life after death would argue that it would have to include the resurrection of the body. As our physical bodies decay, then after death we would have to receive a replica body (J Hick). But is the replica body really ‘I’? Dualists accept the immortality of the soul. The body decays but the soul continues after death (R Descartes)

LIFE AFTER DEATH 2 GILBERT RYLE Ryle was a materialist who argued that any talk of a soul was talk about the way in which a person acted and integrated with others and the world. To him it was not something separate and distinctive.To describe someone as clever, irritable or happy did not require the existence of a separate, invisible thing called a mind or soul.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 3 HARD MATERIALISM Hard Materialists don’t accept our consciousness is anything more that brain activity. The mind cannot be separated from the body. When the body dies, then so does the brain. An individuals characteristics are purely physical

LIFE AFTER DEATH 4 SOFT MATERIALISTS They believe that consciousness is more than just brain activity. The mind and body are related and do not act independently of each other. They do not accept survival of the soul/mind after death because: Life depends on a functioning brain Death involves the destruction of the brain Therefore a person’s life ends at death, as without a physical form, life cannot be supported

LIFE AFTER DEATH 5 RICHARD DAWKINS He rejects the concept of an immortal soul. We are only the sum total of our DNA Life is not a miraculous creation but a consequence of evolution. Dawkins argues that if people rejected notions of an after life and God and learnt to reason like scientists, then they would become better humans

LIFE AFTER DEATH 6 RECREATION THEORY Some materialists believe there is life after death. The only way this could happen, as the soul cannot be separated from the body, would be to involve the resurrection of the body. For a materialist to say he survived death, the resurrected body would have to be in a form similar to life in this world. Any other form would mean the personal identity had not survived death

LIFE AFTER DEATH 8 RE-CREATION & THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY Many philosophers would dispute that the replica body is still the same as the pre-death person. Which of these is correct? - First I existed in this world, then I died, & then I existed again in the next world. - First I existed in this world, then I died, & then God created someone else who is exactly similar to me. Remember the radio play about the mother going to Australia for her son’s wedding!!!

LIFE AFTER DEATH 9 DUALISM Dualists say it is the mind/soul that determines our personality & the body is an outer shell for our real self. The body is contingent and therefore is destined for decay. The mind, associated with higher realities, is immortal. If man’s life is spent contemplating these higher realities, his soul can enter eternity after the death of the physical body. This is known as the immortality of the soul.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 10 PLATO believed the soul belonged to a higher level of reality than the body He based this on his theory of forms For every object there is an ideal object or form. Every objects participates in its form. Ideas are not physical things so must belong to a spiritual realm or form. The soul can grasp this realm. The soul wants to travel to this spiritual realm of heavenly ideas and understand them. The aim of the soul is to break free of the chains of matter and flee to the spiritual realm

LIFE AFTER DEATH 11 PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE Using this allegory, (The prisoner’s journey is like our own towards our spiritual realm) Plato said that before we were born we had the knowledge of the Forms but we ‘forgot’, and thus lost, this knowledge. But it is possible to regain it through logic. Plato said we have to become enlightened to free us from ignorance and darkness. Our search will lead us to the Form of the Good and we will turn from physical pleasures and concentrate on spiritual matters.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 12 ARISTOTLE The soul and the body are inseparable. He believed the soul is what gives the body ‘life’. The soul and the body are inseparable. Aristotle appears to be a materialist though he believed that the soul and body were different, so a soft materialist. The soul is what gives humans the ability to reflect and grasp universals. But Aristotle, unlike Plato, believed when the body dies the soul dies as well. The psyche was about bodily sensations. The nous was about the thinking mind.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 13 ST THOMAS AQUINAS He agreed with Aristotle that the soul ‘animated’ the body. The soul operates independently of the body. Aquinas believed that only things that were divisible into parts could decay & die. The soul is indivisible so cannot die. The surviving soul retains the individual identity of the body to which it was attached

LIFE AFTER DEATH 14 CARTESIAN DUALISM – RENE DESCARTES. He thought everything non physical was part of the mind – “I think therefore I am” – therefore the mind is distinct from the body. The mind is not located in the body & is not the same as the brain. The mind & body interact. The mind can cause events in the body & vice versa.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 15 IS DUALISM CORRECT? Is our identity only the result of memories and actions in the mind? What about the causal effects between mind and body? Modern science has shown links between the mind and the brain, so how can the mind survive on its own? If minds are non-physical objects, how can the mind cause anything to happen in the physical world?

LIFE AFTER DEATH 7 RECREATION THEORY – JOHN HICK Hick argued that an exact replica of the pre-death person would have to appear. This replica would have to have ALL the pre-death persons characteristics. So, although death does destroy the original person, God recreates them. If some form of bodily resurrection of a replica body were possible, it would surely be possible for that replica body to be resurrected in a place especially for resurrected bodies! St. Paul hints at this in 1 Corinthians 15: 35-44

LIFE AFTER DEATH 16 DO WE HAVE MORE THAN ONE LIFE? Reincarnation accepts the transmigration of souls. At death, the souls leaves the body that it currently inhabits and eventually starts another life in another physical body. Each life is influenced by the karma from previous lives. The aim is to achieve perfection, so that the need to be reborn ends and a state of bliss is achieved. Personal identity is lost as the soul becomes one with the Ultimate reality.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 17 IS THERE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT LIFE AFTER DEATH 1? Near death experiences – Is the person really ‘dead’ and visiting the afterlife, or are NDEs hallucinations resulting from oxygen starvation or illness? Regression to past lives – Is the person remembering past lives or remembering experiences and knowledge gained earlier in his life?

LIFE AFTER DEATH 18 IS THERE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT LIFE AFTER DEATH 2? ‘Sightings of dead people’ – Are these sightings of the spirits of the dead, hallucinations or a ‘tape’ of past events? Spiritualism – Are mediums contacting the dead, or are they thought-readers of the living?

LIFE AFTER DEATH 19 IS IT LIFE AFTER DEATH? When people remember the things that we have done, or us, is this life after death? If we have descendants, do we live on in their genetic make-ups? If we are kept in a cryogenic state at the point of death, with a view to revival at some future date, have we died?